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Some questions people have just don't require depth. This thread is a recurring feature intended to provide a space for those simple, straight forward questions that are otherwise unsuited for the format of the subreddit.
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(Reposting a question from a couple weeks ago; seems legal but apologies if against a rule that I'm missing)
Load shedding/rolling blackouts/unreliable grid power is a fairly common phenomenon in most developing countries today. Did the US and/or UK experience these to a similar extent in the 1900s-1930s as they were developing their grids?
I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find writing on this topic. I'm looking at most of David Nye's stuff, but his work on blackouts seems to be more focused on rare, large-scale blackout events. I'm more interested in typical/routine losses of power that occur frequently.
The fact that I've been looking on-and-off for 2 weeks and haven't really found anything suggests that the answer is "no", but I'm not a historian by training and confirmation would be nice before I go down this road.
Are there any accounts of survivors of a rout in battle?
I know that throughout history, most deaths in battle came during the rout phase when men were no longer fighting but were instead panicked and running for their lives. Are there any accounts from soldiers who survived and described the horror and terror of such things? I can't imagine seeing helpless people around you being slaughtered mercilessly without it leaving severe trauma on the human psyche, and a massive amount of survivor's guilt.
Does anyone know the war photographer/journalist that was on a plane with a warlord and had a chance to kill him when he was asleep but never did and lived with immense guilt?
What tobacco did J. S. Bach smoke?
He lived a few places and for a few years, let's get as close as possible to Potsdam, Germany, 1747. Bach was close company of Fredrick the Great, rolling in some high circles. He was a near continual pipe smoker (anecdotally, his children cried when they saw him come in without his pipe in his mouth; they didn't recognize him and took him for an intruder).
Virginia based? Danish rope?
What was the common Religion like in Korea before the current major religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Islam)?
The future George IV accumulated a debt of £630,000 (almost £70 million today) before his father King George III paid it off in 1795. Who lent him that kind of money, and how could they afford having that much to lend out?
Where there any atheist popes?
I'm interested in the list of the 800+ Greek historians included in Jacoby's Fragmente der Grieschischen Historiker, I know there's Brill's New Jacoby online but as far as I know it can only be accessed through academic institutions or by paying. Plus as I said I'm only interested in the list, not the fragments and comments. If there's such list online and someone could redirect me to it, I'd be very obliged. Thanks in advance.
What are some historical examples of people in positions of power voluntarily relinquishing some of this power for a perceived 'greater good' (essentially, redistributing their power without being coerced)?
**(**Thinking about the great inequalities of capital and power in today's world, it seems hard to believe that individuals with this great power will be moved by altruism to give some of this up (thinking of billionaires, elites, etc). It occurred to me that knowing about historical examples of this happening may help us understand under what circumstances something like that would be possible. Do kings give up their absolute power only under coercion, the relative empowerment of other nobility? Do magnates with monopolies give up their power only when instructed to by law?)
We all know how capable and efficient Napolean's marshalls were in winning the wars, especially before 1808 but I specifically wanted to know about the performance of Marshall Bernadotte in Napolean's campaigns.
Was he the best marshall of Napolean after Massena and Davout?
Why was his corp named the 1st corp?
(I KNow about him not going to support Davout at battle of Jena and i would answer to have information not anything related to this battle)
Where did the Chaldeans come from before moving into Mesopotamia and the Levant? I read somewhere that it's believed they may have come from the Arabian peninsula, but I don't know if that's true or what evidence led to that theory.
If the Torah, as I understand, was written around the time of the Babylonian Exile, does that mean the Mosaic Law within is a good source of contemporaneous legal thinking? Are there other sources to look at for law of the ANE in Neobabylonian/Achaemenid times?
A long while ago I heard that Kaiser Frederick of Germany desired to be styled as Frederick IV as a continuation of the Holy Roman Emperors.
Bismarck didn't want this and was able to talk him out of it, remaining Frederick III as his Prussian Regnant number.
This popped up again a few weeks ago so I didn't make it up but I haven't found a source.
Did this actually happen?
Is the documentary "Ancient Apocalypse" from Netflix woth a watch?
I wanted to watch it, but I saw it's with some guy called Graham Hancock that wikipedia describes as "a British writer who promotes pseudoscientific theories involving ancient civilizations and lost lands".
So, is the documentary real history, or just some fake mumbo jumbo?
Statistically, given historical birth rates, what was the last day on which no one was born likely to have been?
Curious if anyone here has listened to the Literature and History podcast and has any assessment of it https://literatureandhistory.com/
Are Goebbels diaries from 1944 available anywhere in English?
When did the regency or regencies of Carlota of Mexico begin and end?
What caused the most deaths throughout human history? (I assume its infectious diseases.) Does anyone have a source for this?
Is it true that Tsar Uroš IV Dušan had the idea to unify the Serbs in his empire and not just selfishly conquer, or is it just Serbian propaganda? Were there even sizable Serbian communities in places like Thessaloniki at the time?
What's the origin of the command "Fire!" when launching artillery?
I once read somewhere that the word ‘ruler’ come from how lords and kings used to be the ones to establish measurements so they could assess how much they could tax the populace. Rulers <==> ones who establish measurements <==> ruling/measuring stick
I thought I read this idea from James C. Scott, but I’ve skimmed Seeing Like A State and there’s nothing about the etymology of the word ‘ruler’. Does anyone know any paper/book about this topic?
Can you recommend me books or other sources focused heavily on the non-importation movement around the American Revolution?
What was the most recent US election that was stolen? (Latest I know of is democratic primary of the 1948 US Senate Election in Texas. Any more recent?)
Does anyone have some good recommendations for biographies of George Washington?
I would even be interested in a biography written by non Americans
Clarification on a 1145/1146 massacre by the almohads.
I read a book that talked about this event. The book says, “Between 1145 and 1146 they took the cities of Oran, Tlemcen and the oasis of Sijilmasa, on the north western border of the Sahara. For seven months they tried peacefully to convert Sijilmasas large Jewish population to Islam. When their efforts were unrewarded they put a hundred and fifty Jews to the sword. The rest, led by their judge, quickly converted. They were relatively lucky: at about the same time a hundred thousand Christian’s and Jews were massaged by the Almohads in Fez, and a hundred and twenty thousand in Marrakesh.”
I looked this event up and it said Jews and Muslims were killed. Can someone shed some light on what exactly the passage is talking about?
In terms of fields, What is the difference between the history of medicine and environmental history?
Did Frantz fanon and Malcolm x ever meet/communicate with each other?
at the very least were they aware of each other's work/existence?
any sources overlapping those two is highly appreciated
Does anyone have a copy of the Northern Ireland Education Act 1947?
How much did a Billard table cost in 1812 Louisiana?
I'm reading Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the cotton kingdom by Kathryn Olivarius. In she states that in Louisiana's first constitution drafted in 1813, one option to gaining suffrage was to own a billiard table. Other options are owning a quantity of bank stock, or to have paid taxes on substantial property.
Which begs the question how much did a Billard table cost in 1810's Louisiana?
What are some specific examples of The US imposing dictators on foreign peoples?
Where did the baseball term “a can of corn” originate? Announcers often call an easy pop fly “a can of corn” and I’d like it know how it came about.
Did Hitler actually say don't let what other people think stop from doing the things you love
What did they call the year Alexander the Great was born in back in his time?
So, when was the first tuesday in history?
Was Ghandi a member of the Muslim League?
What's the origin of 'celebrity crush'? Does anyone know when and by whom the (phrase?) was coined? Doubt I'll get any answers since my post was killed and nobody gets answers here but I'll hope.
